Category Archives: Video

It is becoming something of a tradition for the GSA annual Season’s Greetings videos to be produced by graduates of our MDes Sound for the Moving Image programme. This year its the turn of graduate Graeme John Douglas Ronald with this moving and reflective piece – Forever River. Enjoy.

Students on the MSc Sound for the Moving Image gave up their free time on weekends and evenings to create the soundscape for the independent film Tam, a short film that has been well received internationally.

Tam was already won an Award of Recognition at this years IndieFESTin the USA, and will be coming to more festivals this year. Look out for more news in the near future.

We would like to congratulate the students on their excellent work and wish them all a great summer as they complete their degree, as well a lucrative film career in the years ahead!

The Glasgow School of Art and Digital Design Studio had lots to show off this year for XPoNorth in Inverness, participating in several panels and and hosting an evening of drinks with friends and colleagues.

Some of this year’s best work was on display, including heritage, serious games, and medical projects from the student body, as well as additional projects by the Design students at the nearby Forres campus. The evening was capped off with a great slide presentation and fashion show displaying some recent pieces from GSA Textile Design students . All in all, a great event.

We would like to congratulate Sound for Moving Image student Kevin Murray, who has won a The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Scotland New Talent Award for his short film “Paperclip”. Well done!

I didn’t even entertain the idea of getting nominated, never mind winning, and as such had absolutely no prep; even in my head, for an acceptance speech.

As I still didn’t believe I had a chance of winning once I had been nominated, I fully intended to have a nice time being at the awards and drinking all the free booze. It’s only good fortune and my friend Colin (Who did the camera work for paperclip) being incredibly late, that I wasn’t completely smashed on free wine before things even began.

Upon winning, I went proper giddy, as is evident from the official BAFTA photo of all the winners doing there best to look regal and winnery, and me laughing like a maniac beside my pal Danny Boyle.

The DDS was given an opportunity to strut its stuff for Scotland’s biggest daily magazine show “Alive at Five” on STV, and show off some of our recent research work in 3D visualisation, haptic design, and medical/ historical digital recreation.

Laser scan of plaster casts in one of the 1st floor studios

A key highlight of our recent work has been digitising and creating an interactive walkthrough of the GSA’s own Macintosh Building, which was badly damaged in a fire in 2014. This work is now being used to help inform and support the building’s restoration.

Congratulations to DDS Grad Kevin Murray (MDes Sound for Moving Image, 2015) who has been nominated for a BAFTA Scotland NewTalent award for his short film “Paperclips” – created as part of his work for the MDes.

David McAulay, currently on the MDes Sound for Moving Image programme at the DDS, was sound mixer, editor and composer for the just-released documentary In the Valley of Guns and Roses. The documentary follows the struggles of Irina, a single mother working in a weapons factory in Bulgaria’s Rose Valley.

In addition to mixing and editing the sound for the production, David also wrote the score, and had this to say about his work:
“The director Simon and I have often talked about the sensitivity required when imposing music upon a character. This is particularly important in documentary film. Even the slightest shift in tone can damage the integrity of the story. This has led me towards finding a way of using the character’s speech patterns and gestures as the basic building blocks for my compositions.

Irina is deeply connected to the folk music of Bulgaria through both her singing and her relationship with her late Grandfather. Simon captured some great performances demonstrating this connection. I worked with fragments of these old folk songs, using the melodic contours as building blocks for new material. Her very constitution is embedded within the score.

While studying Irina’s speech melody, I developed an intimacy with her that had a profound impact on the resulting music. By isolating and repeating phrases from her interviews I could transform her speech into melody and continue building the score around that. The Czech composer Leoš Janáček was one of the first to use speech melody in his operas and said – ‘if speech melody is the flower of the water lily, it nevertheless buds and blossoms and drinks from the roots, which wander in the waters of the mind’.”

UPDATE: As an amendment to our previous story ‘DDS Grad snags BAFTA Nomination’, we would like to congratulate Kevin for winning this year’s BAFTA New Talent award! Well done!

Recent MDes Sound for Moving Image graduate Kevin Walls has been nominated for this year’s The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Scotland New Talent Award for Sound for his short film “Identical”. We wish him all the best in the competition!

I’m utterly shocked to be nominated and I still can’t quite believe it. The film would not have been possible without the use of the exceptional facilities at the DDS or the support and guidance of Ronan and the team of lecturers on the MDes Sound for the Moving Image programme. I really can’t wait for the ceremony as it’ll be a great chance to network with some of the best new talent in the country and it’ll be a great opportunity to celebrate the three months of work that went into making“Identical”.

The GSA & Big Screen recently organised a one minute film competition as part of the Glasgow Short Film Festival. First and third places were both picked up by MDes Sound for the Moving Image students.

1st Place, Chiara Cabri Chiara was the overall winner of the The Art School and Big Screen’s One Minute Short Competition for her film “Fluctuation”

Getting a message across in just one minute can be a very challenging task. In “Fluctuation”, I wanted to create an engaging experience, in which the viewer had to feel part of the action. As a sound designer, I wanted to generate a feeling of immersion. The making of the film was driven by how I wanted it to sound like, rather than to look like, and I believe it is greatly enriched by it.

I decided to participate to the one-minute competition as I felt it was a good opportunity to experiment something new and show it to fellow filmmakers, especially concerning what I have learnt during my time at the GSA. Winning was unexpected. I was pleased by the fact that the time I had spent on the project had been rewarded and it pushed me to further test myself. Moreover, this gave me the chance to participate to the conclusion of the short film festival, where my short film was showed again at the Centre for Contemporary Arts. Overall, this experience has given me confidence and the drive to pursue new challenges in the future.

Laurence Chan, 3rd Place3rd Place runner up for the film “Degeneration”

The piece employs VHS generation loss (multiple dubbings to the point of noise). Successive dubs causes various video glitches and are overlayed to show the transition of degradation. The subject is Justin Bieber’s mugshot. It alludes to his progressively reported degenerate adolescent celebrity lifestyle. The single audio sample of his debut single ‘Baby’ is rearranged and slowly degraded (Plunderphonics) to noise, furthering the theme of transition and degeneration.

The one minute constraint was an interesting creative challenge to convey the theme of transition. The experience of the short film festival has been thoroughly rewarding and participation is highly recommended.

A group of DDS MDes Sound for the Moving Students recently developed and produced a video welcome to Glasgow for the 2016 ICSEI (International Congress for School Effectiveness and School Improvement) conference.

The video premiered in front of an international audience in Cincinnati, where it was well received (“The pupils were the stars and delegates of the international conference were overwhelmed by their ability to describe the impact excellent teaching and learning has on them.”)

Writing before the showing, Moyra Boland of the Glasgow University School of Education had this to say:

The University of Glasgow’s School of Education worked with Glasgow School of Art’s Digital Design students on a project which resulted in a promotional DVD about pupils in Glasgow schools, what they think about their teachers, their learning and how they learn from others. This creative, exciting partnership was a pleasure to be part of, the students from the Digital Design Studio were professional, focussed and innovative in their approach. The students were able to create a relaxed, fun environment while filming this helped the pupils to be natural and engaging while speaking to camera.

The DVD will be premiered in the USA in January, the audience will be international policy makers, researchers and educationalists. The DVD will then be hosted on the websites of all the key policy makers and educators in Scotland.

Like all great projects the final product was something all participants were proud to be part of.